Sue Harris is looking for the right person — or group — to ‘properly honor’ Wells County’s veterans
By MARK MILLER
Sue Harris remains a woman on a mission.
It all started 10 years ago when she went to the Wells County Courthouse to pay their property taxes. There had always been two large showcases on each side of the hallway along the second-floor main entrance: a list of the county’s World War I veterans on one side and World War II veterans on the other. The listing of the World War II veterans was gone.
She began asking questions. Not only did any courthouse worker not know where the display had gone, many had not even noticed them. She was eventually allowed to search the courthouse attic and basement herself. Claude McMillan, then the county’s veterans services officer, did not know; the list had not been taken to the American Legion post.
Harris began doing her own research to reconstruct the list. She found a list at the local library that Bob Mossburg had compiled in 1961, taken from newspaper accounts during the 1940s. She talked to Connie Brubaker, who was and remains active in the Wells County Historical Society and received a list of the Wells County World War II Honor Roll.
“The two lists had a lot of similar names and a lot of different names,” she reported at that time. And then she realized neither her father, Arden Kunkel, nor his brother were on either list.
She went to the News-Banner for help. Dave Schultz wrote an article about her dilemma and her determination to reconstruct the list and find a place for its new home. Harris quickly realized that the inside of the courthouse was not a visible enough location. She had, in her early work, discovered that “nobody — elected officials, courthouse workers, lawyers — even knew the list had been there.”
Additionally, the main entrance to the courthouse had been moved to the lower level hence making that second floor location even more rarely seen.
Having retired in 2010 after 32 years of teaching in the Norwell and Bluffton school systems, Harris had the time, and she discovered a keen desire to see that “these veterans were honored.”
In 2016, Kayleen Reusser wrote an update for the News-Banner on Harris’ efforts, in which she shared that her intent had broadened to include all veterans from World Wars I and II, the Korean War, Vietnam and the Gulf War. By this time, Harris estimated that she had information on more than 2,400 individuals.
One of the questions had been on the parameters of who “qualifies” as being from Wells County. Her research had found men and women who grew up here and went off to service but afterwards, settled somewhere else. Others had grown up elsewhere, served in a conflict and then settled in Wells County and others had worked here but lived and were buried in a neighboring county. She concluded that she’d rather error on the side of a veteran being honored here in addition to another county.
“We cannot honor our vets enough,” she said.
She and her husband Mike, also a retired teacher, have traveled to Normandy and as far west as San Diego visiting cemeteries and community displays that honor veterans.
Harris has, in the past decade, spent countless hours researching the microfilm copies of the News-Banner and online, chiefly at the “Find-a-Grave” website. Her research now fills a spare bedroom in their rural Bluffton home and her efforts have resulted in the addition of one name to the list of local veterans killed in action at Veterans Park — Doug Bowman.
It is time, she says, for the next step.
“What I’d really like to see are several permanent lists erected on the (Parlor City) Plaza of all the veterans,” she says. That location, she believes, would be the most visible and visited location to properly honor the county’s veterans. While she has devoted all of this time and effort — and expense — to cataloging her research, she knows she is not capable of mounting a community drive to raise the funds necessary.
Harris’ research includes numerous photographs of displays in other communities — as close as Decatur, Berne, Portland, Hartford City, and Peru and as far away as Utah and New Mexico. “It’s incredible what they’ve done” to honor their veterans. “If they can do it,” she says, “so can we.”
She has talked to and been encouraged by Mike Lautzenheiser, who heads up the Bluffton NOW! group that oversees the plaza.
“Yes, that would be a great addition to the plaza,” Lautzenheiser told the News-Banner. “Super cool.”
He says that the group would be more than willing to consider the project once Harris has a more concrete proposal.
Harris has had a conversation with the president of a local service club. “Somebody or some group like that,” she says, “they could get this done.” She has another picture of a display that lists those who donated to make that community’s veterans’ display possible.
“It’s doable,” she says. “I know there’s someone out there who could make this happen.”
Harris can be reached at 260-273-7605. “Just leave me a message,” she says.
miller@news-banner.com
